


rouge et vert

by fraternite



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen, Street artist Grantaire, cynic!Enjolras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 15:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraternite/pseuds/fraternite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short thing inspired by the role reversal post going around on Tumblr--where Grantaire is the idealistic leader in red and Enjolras is the cynic.</p>
<p>Modern AU where Grantaire is a street artist because this was the way activist!Grantaire really seemed to work best in my head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rouge et vert

Paris could be beautiful again.  He could see it in his dreams, the old, cracked buildings blossoming into new life as the paint ran down them in curls and flowers and words that would remind people of the things they really cared about, deep inside.  The vacant lots could become gardens; the smoky tenements, clean, safe houses where people would be proud to raise their children.  The artists could transform the rundown playgrounds into spaces where children would once again want to play.  Under their hands, the city would blossom into imperfect, paint-splattered beauty.

Grantaire did have his bad days, the days when everything piled up and it all seemed impossible to change and even little things like the overflowing trash bin were too much to face.  He had days when everything he had ever messed up, every wrong and sorrow and hurt he had ever seen pressed in around him and all he could do was huddle under his tangled covers and wait for it to go away.  But after every string of bad days came the good ones, when ideas tumbled over each other in his head so fast he could hardly breathe and he had to run out into the streets alone, barefoot, at four a.m. and fling his words on the walls in glowing red, yellow, and blue:  _You are loved.  Fear is a liar.  The world can be beautiful again._ He needed the bad days, he believed.  They reminded him of all there was to change—all there was that  _could_  be changed.

He didn’t know why the guy in the stained green hoodie came to the meetings of the street artists’ group at all.  Enjolras didn’t seem to believe in what they were doing.  He sat in the back and mumbled cynical comments under his breath—but Grantaire, whose senses seemed twice as sharp on the good days, heard every word.  “As if.”  “I’m sure nobody’s ever suggested  _that one_  before.”  “Of course,  _flowers_  will bring the ‘one percent’ to their knees.”

Grantaire followed him one day after the group split up after their preparatory meeting.  Enjolras walked quickly, decisively, as if he already had a spot in mind, but the places where he stopped to scrawl something on the wall seemed chosen at random, and he painted quickly and carelessly.  He started with “The Police work for the Government not the People” on the side of an old warehouse, then “FEAR SELLS” on the side of a newspaper vending machine.  Along a long concrete wall that ran along the riverfront park, he painted a series of short messages: “46.5 million in poverty” “16 million kids hungry” “45 million without healthcare”, finishing with, in large, drippy letters: “IF YOU’RE NOT ANGRY YOU’RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION.”

The final straw was when he stopped in front of a playground where, just two days earlier, Grantaire and Jehan had painted a child holding a balloon with large cursive words that read “Don’t Be Afraid.”  Enjolras studied the painting as he shook up his can of black paint, then added a messy scrawl of his own over one corner of it: “we’ll all be dead in the end.”

Grantaire seethed with fury all the way back to the Musain.  He stumbled into the back room where they met, everything a blur except for the back of that green hoodie; he planted his hands between Enjolras’s shoulders and shoved.  Enjolras staggered, nearly knocking over one of the rickety tables.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Grantaire shouted.  "I mean, what—what the actual  _fuck_?”

Enjolras frowned in confusion, then his eyes widened.  “You followed me, didn’t you?  Look, you paint on other people’s things all the time, you can’t expect—”

"It’s not about the painting!" Grantaire fumed.  "It’s about—about everything.  All those things you painted.  Nothing but hate and anger and conspiracy."

Enjolras stared him down, but Grantaire was too angry to be cowed.  ”Why are you even here, if this is how you feel about things?  We’re trying to  _help_ people, to change this city for the better, not make it worse!  And if you’re not behind that, if you’re just out to spread fear and negativity, you have no place here.”

"I let you do your thing your own way, let me do mine," Enjolras muttered.  He slung his battered black backpack over his shoulder and turned to go.

"Do you even believe in anything?" Grantaire shouted at his back.

Enjolras glanced back at him, his face blank; Grantaire couldn’t tell whether he was making fun or utterly serious.  ”I once had a vague ambition in that direction.”


End file.
